Educators should be careful with their words

Dec. 27, 2012 at 6:27 a.m.

Editor, the Advocate:

I have a very smart and sweet nephew in fifth grade at O'Connor Elementary School. When taking his bench mark test, he began tapping his pencil on the desk while thinking and was asked to stop by the substitute teacher. After a couple of minutes, he unconsciously started the habit again, and the substitute responded by telling him "You know, I have no problem calling the police to have you arrested for disrupting the classroom." OK, she was annoyed, I understand. But she did not have to respond to him the next morning when he said to me, "If someone came to threaten my school like what happened to the little kids in Connecticut, that teacher would not save me. She wants me arrested."

Your words carry weight with these children who are not blind to the cruelty in the world. They do not need senseless threats from their educators ever and especially not now with the recent events that have occurred. Through this letter I want educators to think twice about the words they use when attempting to discipline these children. Yes, my fifth-grade nephew was tapping his pencil. I was not aware that was punishable by jail sentence.